Yama: the pit eBook

In the evening Lichonin strolled with Liubka through
Prince Park, listened to the music playing in the
aristocratic club, and returned home early. He
escorted Liubka to the door of her room and at once
took leave of her; kissing her, however, tenderly on
the brow, like a father. But after ten minutes,
when he was already lying in bed undressed and reading
the statutes of state, Liubka, having scratched on
his door like a cat, suddenly entered his room.

“Darling, sweetie! Excuse me for troubling
you. Haven’t you a needle and thread?
But don’t get angry at me; I’ll go away
at once.”

“Liuba! I beg of you to go away not at
once, but this second. Finally, I demand it!”

“My dearie, my pretty,” Liubka began to
intone laughably and piteously, “well, what
are you yelling at me for all the time?” and,
in a moment, having blown upon the candle, she nestled
up to him in the darkness, laughing and crying.

“No, Liuba, this must not be. It’s
impossible to go on like this,” Lichonin was
saying ten minutes later, standing at the door, wrapped
up in his blanket, like a Spanish hidalgo in a cape.
“To-morrow at the latest I’ll rent a
room for you in another house. And, in general,
don’t let this occur! God be with you, and
good night! Still, you must give me your word
of honour that our relations will be merely friendly.”

“I give it, dearie, I give it, I give it, I
give it!” she began to prattle, smiling; and
quickly smacked him first on the lips and then on
his hand.

The last action was altogether instinctive; and, perhaps,
unexpected even to Liubka herself. Never yet in
her life had she kissed any man’s hand, save
a priest’s. Perhaps she wanted to express
through this her gratitude to Lichonin, and a prostration
before him as before a higher being.

CHAPTER XV.

Among Russian intelligents, as has already been noted
by many, there is a decent quantity of wonderful people;
true children of the Russian land and culture, who
would be able heroically, without the quivering of
a single muscle, to look straight in the face of death;
who are capable for the sake of an idea of bearing
unconceivable privations and sufferings, equal to torture;
but then, these people are lost before the haughtiness
of a doorman; shrink from the yelling of a laundress;
while into a police station they enter in an insufferable
and timid distress. And precisely such a one
was Lichonin. On the following day (yesterday
it had been impossible on account of a holiday and
the lateness), having gotten up very early and recollecting
that to-day he had to take care of Liubka’s
passport, he felt just as bad as when in former times,
as a high-school boy, he went to an examination, knowing
that he would surely fall through. His head ached,
while his arms and legs somehow seemed another’s;
in addition, a drizzling and seemingly dirty rain
had been falling on the street since morning.
“Always, now, when there’s some unpleasantness
in store, there is inevitably a rain falling,”
reflected Lichonin, dressing slowly.